All Your Self Defense Needs

When you ask someone where does martial arts come from most people will answer “Japan”. Now that’s a pretty uneducated answer as no one really knows the original starting location of martial arts. Having said that Japan certainly has made it famous. For such a small country it has many different types. Here’s a breakdown of the best of them.

Sumo

Sumo dates back 2000 years ago and has always been seen as a sport rather than a real life fighting technique. While sumo has always been associated with large competitors, it is not always size that matters. Some of the greatest sumos of all time are much smaller. Sumo is also Japan’s national sport.

Jujutsu

Jujutsu translates to “Soft Skills”. While most martial arts involve the use of the striking with the leg or hand Jujutse is more about the use of using indirect force, such as joint locks or throwing techniques. It was developed because many of the Japanese enemies from centuries ago involved people wearing armor, which made striking pointless.

Kenjutsu

Kenjutsu means “the art/science of the sword”. In it’s oldest and simplest form of training and consists of two partners with swords drawn, practicing combat drills with wooden katana.

Swordsmanship

Originally the most important skills of the Japanese warrior were proficiency at horse riding and the use of the bow, this eventually gave way to Swordsmanship. The development of the sword is paralleled by the development of the methods used to wield it. Warriors trained with the sword, and invented different ways to implement it. Then during war, these theories were tested and those that survived, passed on what worked and what didn’t.

Naginatajutsu

Naginatajutsu is the Japanese art of wielding the naginata. Naginata were used to train women and ladies and because of this, most naginatajutsu styles are headed by women and most naginata practitioners in Japan are women. This has led to the outside world that naginatajutsu is a martial art that was not used by male warriors, which is not true.

There you go, there is the list of the most popular of the martial arts in Japan. Japan has one of the more difficult martial art mix. Much like it’s language there are many aspects to it. Rosetta Stone Japanese will help you with make the Japanese language a lot easier. Practice will make your martial arts of choice much easier.

100% correct! But wait there’s more. Like one of those late night commercials it comes with so much more than just the obvious answer. Here’s a list of many of the other benefits of learning self defense.

Confidence

After finishing a lesson you will feel like you have taken a shot of testosterone. You will feel pumped up and ready to take on the world and nothing can hold you back. Having confidence in yourself will stop you from not doing things. You will be out there with all your friends having a great time with the knowledge you don’t need to be afraid of the world.

Fitness

Learning self defense or a martial art is exercise plain and simple. You will find yourself burning calories and feeling better about yourself. The extra energy from the lessons will also help you burn some more calories afterwards when you want to exercise more.

Meeting people

So many people that come to lessons meet new friends. I have seen it so often. When you are in groups with like minded people, it won’t be long before you are chatting and wanting to catch up after hours.

Learning to think

Self defense is really just thinking your way through a problem. Just like so much of life is. Self defense teaches you to work out a best solution quickly. As you would expect, this comes in useful in a number of real life situations.

While we want to try and stay safe, sometime we just find ourselves in trouble. Self defense teaches you how to react in a situation that is potentially hostile. This can come in useful in many other aspects of your life. While people will focus on the physical nature of self defense, it is also mental. It makes you think on your feet, react to your surroundings and make good decisions. After taking lessons you should be taking in your environment in any situation. This can be helpful at work or anywhere. You should think smarter and hence produce better results in your general life when thrown a curve ball. And, no, that doesn’t mean punching your boss in the crutch when he makes you mad!

I hope this has helped to convince you about some of the other benefits of self defense. Have a safe day.

As one of the first posts on this blog, I thought I would give you some of the more popular fighting styles in the world, with some YouTube clips so you can see what they are all about. Later posts will focus on some of these fighting styles individually, so don’t fret, you will get more information!

Muay Thai

Famous for being a sport in Thailand. It is a form of kickboxing. Many people pack stadiums to watch two Thai fighters going at it.

Jiu-jitsu

This is a bit of a mixer style that is great for self defense.

Karate

Karate more than any other fighting style focuses on defending with deflections etc. Effectively it uses defense as a form of offense.

Kickboxing

Focuses on punches, kicks, and knees. It is fast-paced, distracting, and aimed at all available openings.

Wing Chun

Most famous for being the style taught to a young Bruce Lee.

Kung fu

This Chinese fighting style comes in many forms and is one of the oldest.

Taekwondo

Considered the most popular fighting style, it is famous for it’s kicks.

The list above is not all inclusive, but gets us off to a good start. As mentioned above we will go into depth of some of these fighting styles in future posts. Can’t wait!

While there are many self defense methods you can use to defend yourself, it is far better just to keep yourself out of harms way. So we decided to put a post together to give you some advice of some basic things you can do to keep yourself safe.

Travel in groups

Most predators and thieves are looking for easy targets. Someone traveling alone is an easy target. You are far less likely to be attacked when you are walking with someone else.

Be careful at night

A much higher percentage of crimes happen at night. About two in every three crimes happen when the sun is down (Here’s some more information). So at night make sure you stay in well lit areas, and try to keep to busy areas. This will decrease the likelihood of any problems by a substantial amount.

Carry some pepper spray

You need something to protect yourself in case things do get out of hand. Pepper spray is easy to carry and really effective. Make sure you put it somewhere where it is easy to access it. The last thing you want to do is be fumbling in an emergency.

Let people know where you are going

Just let a neighbor or a close friend where you are going and what time you will be getting home. Then they can alert authorities when you don’t get home in time.

Do not flash your wealth

In a perfect world you should be able to walk down the street with all the bling on that you want. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. If you are traveling into a less safe neighborhood don’t carry around your expensive jewelery and handbag. A friend of ours made a terrible mistake when they decided to go and buy some muscle builder Bullnox Androrush for her boyfriend. She got a bus to a sketchy part of town carrying her expensive handbag. Just after getting off the bus she was fronted by two men who quickly relieved her of her handbag (along with it’s contents).

If you think you are being followed

If you sense you are in danger, try to get yourself into an area with other people, hail a cab or do anything you can to move to a safer area.

Don’t get too drunk

We do stupid things when we get drunk, but I don’t really need to tell you that, because you know it! Have a couple and enjoy yourself, just don’t over do it and find yourself waking up in a park without your belongings.

There are just a few things that will help to keep you safe. Most of it just comes back to using commonsense. Also make sure you are with friends so they can look after you and you look after them.

Welcome to all our new followers (and welcome back to all our old friends) to our website all about self defense.

This is just an introductory post before we get into the real stuff. A welcome message.

Our plan is pretty simple here. Each week we will post something that will help you out in your self defense needs. That may be something as simple as discussing a type of martial arts, it may go into ways you can defend yourself from an attacker, or better yet avoid a terrible situation altogether.

We want the world to be a safe place. In the perfect world we wouldn’t need to worry about self defense. Everyone would just get along, live in harmony and self defense wouldn’t even be part of our vocabulary. Well, we all know that is not the case and never will be. So, we need to be able to protect ourselves. We need to be ready for the unexpected. While nothing will be 100% protective, we can put ourselves in a situation where we are best prepared for any event.

Some of our posts will look at people who have pioneered self defense. There have been some extraordinary people in this field. Hopefully we can get an interview with some of them. Here’s hoping!

We will aim at helping men, woman and children. A lot of the advice will be similar, but there are strengths and weaknesses in all of us. We as adults are doing a great service to our children in preparing them to take on the world emotionally. We want children who are ready to attack and be confident in everything they do. However the world will at times want to take something back. We as adults need to also prepare them for this. Hopefully our site can help you do that.

So once again I welcome you. I hope you enjoy your time here. Feel free to contact us and give us some suggestions if you want us to discuss something important to you.